When to use "set geographic target" in Google Webmaster Tools

[malcolmcroucher]

When using google webmaster tools , you can set geographic location . I am wondeing how important that is ?

Should you set it ? and why ?

Would it not be better to have a global slant ?

I was looking at my competitors .

for germany company x ranks high , company y 2nd , company z third
for uk company y ranks 1st, company z second and company x third
for uk company z 1st , z 2nd and y thirds

Does this have to do with geo targeting ?

should i choose a location or leave it ?

I would like visitors from all over the web to see my page , or should I make multiple web sites eg .de , .co.uk and .com ?

Regards

Malcolm

[Receptional Andy]

Personally, I've never used the option in WMT to set a geographic target since I've not had any difficulties in getting geographically targeted results without the use of Webmaster Tools, and frankly, I view this type of option as a potential 'fallback' if things go wrong.

I'd suggest the time to use the setting is if you have a site (only?) targeting a specific local audience, but the site is hosted overseas or has a TLD that doesn't match the target region.

There seems to be a pretty mixed bag of responses to using the options, with reports that it might take several months for the option to take effect [webmasterworld.com] and another that the option didn't seem to be working as expected [webmasterworld.com] for one UK site.

And of course, there's also the thread linked from the Hot Topics [webmasterworld.com] section of this forum (available from the Google forum homepage): Tell Google Your Site Location [pubcon.com].